The question of how to store your floss comes up over and over (and over) again in online stitching groups. Overwhelmingly, the popular choice is to wind it onto bobbins, and then cram them into plastic boxes. I don’t get that at all.
First there’s all the time you have to spend winding, winding, winding. I saw one post from a stitcher who had purchased an entire cone of black floss (that’s 2,280 yards or 1.3 miles of floss) and spent God-knows-how-long winding it onto over 100 bobbins.
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This what half a kilo of floss looks like |
So. Many. Bobbins. |
That’s already enough to turn me off to bobbins (I’d rather spend my time stitching), but here’s the real problem: storing your floss tightly wound onto cardboard cards causes the thread to kink, and that can show up in your finished project. Deal breaker! For me, this is really the primary reason to avoid bobbins.
Your kinks are too square, man!
My last (well, almost last*) gripe with bobbins is that as you search the boxes and boxes of bobbins you now have, there’s no way to see the numbers at a glance, so you have to check by trial and error until you zoom in on the color you’re looking for.
Hmm...is that 601 or 602?
So what’s a stitcher to do? Enter the DMC Stitchbow system. (Ta daa!) Stitchbows hold the skein in its original factory shape so no additional kinking. There’s a tab to hold the floss label, so you not only know the color of your floss, but you can tell the dye lot too.
All hail the majestic Stitchbow
DMC Binder insert pages each hold 15 Stitchbows, and fit a 3-ring binder. This means my complete set of 500+ colors of DMC floss fits neatly into two 4” binders.
My actual Stitchbows
There are other storage methods including Floss-a-way bags, round bobbins and drop cards, but I can’t say enough good things about Stitchbows. I will admit that they cost more than a pack of flimsy, cardboard bobbins, but floss with no kinks and efficient organization make the cost worth it to this born-again Stitchbow evangelist!
NOTE: I am in no way endorsed, paid or supported in any way by DMC. I simply love the Stitchbow system.
*BONUS GRIPE: The word “bobbinate” is not a word. If Merriam – Webster don’t like it, I don’t like it. When they’re ready, I have a definition for them…
Bobbinate (bob·uh·neyt) transitive verbTo waste your time permanently kinking your floss